There have been three deaths in my circle of friends this past fortnight. It has seemed a numbing spiral from grief to grief to grief. And so…a poem to help me process…
Death comes to call in waves,
it seems, unsettling
the shifting sands beneath
our wobbly feet;
each ebb and surge might
topple us and suck
us out into the icy deep.
How grief’s sad wail on wind assails
our fragile sanguine view.
A siren’s dirge, our angst to purge,
can’t set our course anew.
For gaining ground and moving
on are not a certain end.
Sometimes one needs to pause
a spell, to breathe and take it in.
When faced with terse mortality
no soul escapes unscathed.
Remembering our ash-smudged brows
the dust from whence we came.
So hurry not for comfort’s sake,
full sorrow’s dreadful course.
When time stands still ‘tis time one
needs, and space, and little more.
kat ~ June 2015
